Middle Tennessee State University: Journals@MTSU
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Promoting the Social and Emotional Learning of Middle School Students in Japan Through Collaborative Classroom Inquiry
Full text linkThis case study focused on the influence of a collaborative classroom inquiry approach, called “philosophy for children Hawai’i” (p4c Hawai‘i), and involved the social and emotional learning of a class of 39 seventh grade middle school language arts students in Japan. This approach helps learners explore ideas with peers and their teacher. Research indicates Japanese middle schoolers have few opportunities to learn how to develop and maintain relationships, as they do not interact daily with many people. Data for this study included video and audio recordings of the p4c Hawai‘i sessions, students’ responses to a social and emotional learning survey, interviews with the teacher, a focus group interview with students and students’ written reflections. Findings indicated the p4c Hawai‘i approach afforded opportunities for students to improve socioemotional skills, such as self-awareness, awareness of others, development of relationships and responsible decision-making. Using the p4c Hawai’i approach, students expressed theiropinions, even if they were different from others. At the same time, learners listened respectfully to peers to gain their perspectives, which cultivated positive relationships. Listening to different perspectives appeared to promote students’ decision-making skills. Different from traditional approaches, it is noted that teachers who use p4c Hawai‘i become facilitators. As facilitators, they assume a less hierarchical position, as they guide students and model how to share and listen. This approach shows promise in helping teachers support positive social and emotional learning for children in Japan and may assist in reducing social reclusiveness and youth suicide
Destabilizing Happily Ever After: Dickens’s Conflation of the False Bride/Fairy Bride Motifs in David Copperfield
Full text linkIn Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield (1849-50), naïve David calls his wedding to Dora Spenlow a “fairy marriage” (531), apparently using the term in the same sense that “fairy-tale wedding” is popularly used today: to describe the romantic obtainment of happily-ever-after between a bride and groom, characterized by a sense of the fantastic or unreal. As a child, Dickens too had been seduced by a dream of fairy-tale ecstasy: in a nostalgic description of finding “Little Red Riding Hood” on his Christmas Tree, he reminisces, “She was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding-Hood, I should have known perfect bliss. But,” he continues significantly, “it was not to be” (Christmas 291). While David is a blind young dreamer, Dickens the adult writer is made sadder and wiser not only by his deeper understanding of fairy tales but also by his own life experience. Dickens knew by then that traditional fairy tales don’t always end on the wedding day—often as not, they go on to relate the continued torments visited upon the bride and groom by nightmarish in-laws, or by one another—and this knowledge runs through the heart of the novel. The truth is, as Kelly Hager explains, “Dickens’s most autobiographical novel is concerned in a multiplicity of ways with the institution of marriage and the miseries it causes” (990). Dickens’s use of the phrase reveals his understanding of its true implications: “fairy marriages” are as likely to result in misery as in happiness
Baudemann, Kristina. The Future Imaginary in Indigenous North American Arts and Literatures. Routledge, 2022.
Full text linkKristina Baudemann’s The Future Imaginary In Indigenous North American Arts and Literatures draws together texts by Indigenous authors that share a common trope: dreaming of “a common future while nevertheless being mindful of their cultural differences” (2). Her case studies address six novels and eight stories that imagine the future against the backdrop of the past. Positing that the “gradual disappearance of Indigenous people is a narrative—rather than historic fact or natural necessity,” Baudemann explains how that narrative is “grounded in the circular logic according to which their supposed absence in times to come justifies the colonizers’ past and present genocidal dealings with them” (5-6). Yet, as Baudemann’s meticulously researched book documents, the future is not a cemented truth but rather malleable and dependent on actions in both the past and present. As she sets forth in her opening chapter, Baudemann’s method of “future analysis” requires that she develop and apply new theoretical parameters that highlight how each text she examines “creates its own future imaginary” (7, emphasis in original). Collectively, these new imaginaries overturn the past by offering futures with endless possibilities for indigenous peoples
Know when to hold \u27em, know when to fold \u27em
No full textForming relationships with donors can lead to many positive and beneficial outcomes for academic libraries. New collections and funds raised help to support institutional priorities and ultimately benefit our faculty and students. However, sometimes these negotiations necessitate that the practitioner walk away, if the donor’s interests do not align with the library’s. A productive partnership between the practitioner and their development officer becomes key to navigating such situations successfully. This article presents three case studies that highlight how practitioners can leverage this important partnership in support of their work
The Friday Finish: Incentivizing Student Success and Building Partnerships.
Full text linkSunday evenings are busy for academic libraries as students struggle to catch up on a weekend\u27s worth of work and hit midnight assignment deadlines. The Friday Finish was created to encourage students to be productive on Fridays before relaxing for the weekend. To incentivize students to come into the library and stay there, it provides food throughout the day and features additional activities including wellness consults, financial advisors, crafts, chair massages, animal shows, and more. This paper will discuss our successes and challenges.
Meeting Them Where They Are: Working with Third and Fourth Age Donors
Full text linkRelationships are at the heart of development work. For many donors these relationships deepen in the last decades of their lives as they look back, reflect and give to the institutions they value. The process of aging affects these relationships and a savvy development professional must learn to adapt their interactions to meet the needs of a donor as their way of interacting changes. This article shares the most common changes that are seen with donors as they age, offers suggestions to keep the relationship strong and provides a glimpse into the science behind many of the conditions people experience as they age
Dreaming A Playground: Supporting Children’s Imagination
Full text linkAuthors describe the value of designing a playground to promote children’s imagination through play. Important for parents, teachers and administrators, this discussion provides the theoretical rationale in defense of children’s outdoor play and the imminent need to revitalize children’s diminishing capacities to imagine
Raising the Bar: Improving Mathematics Education to Equip Students for Success
Full text linkThis article explores the critical importance of mathematics education in fostering essential skills such as reasoning, problem-solving, and real-world numeracy. It examines concerning trends in U.S. mathematics performance through national and international assessments, including NAEP and TIMSS, exposing widening achievement gaps. Evidence-based strategies and curricular models—such as Singapore Math and the use of instructional coaching—that have demonstrated promise in improving outcomes, are discussed. Furthermore, it highlights the expanding role of educational technology and artificial intelligence in mathematics instruction, with practical recommendations and toolkits for educators. By integrating research-based practices, culturally responsive pedagogy, and innovative technologies, schools can better support all learners in developing mathematical proficiency vital for academic, personal, and professional success. 
What Is Dead May Never Die: A Word from the Media Review Editor
Full text linkThe media review section in this issue of The Incredible Nineteenth-Century: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Fairy Tale includes Stacey Hoffer’s reflections on a trio of “cozy puzzle” video games whose play mechanics, storylines, and visuals offer gamers lessons in how gender ideology shaped nineteenth-century botany discourse and intensified the unresolved tension between occult and scientific epistemic habits that dually informed Victorian knowledge of plants. Meanwhile, Safiyya Hosein takes readers beyond the familiar Euro-medieval geography of Westeros to visit the “mysterious” city of Pentos in HBO’s series House of the Dragon (2022- ) that is set in the fantasy universe of George R. R. Martin. Hosein notes how so much of Pentos— its spices, architectural forms, harems, and bloodthirsty warriors—faithfully reproduces orientalist tropes that exoticize non-western bodies and settings that might as well have been cribbed from Richard Burton’s illustrated 1885-88 edition of The Arabian Nights. In an age when Anglo-American cultural discourse is shaped by a suspiciously Victorian “separate spheres” worldview as propagated by manosphere and tradwife influencers nostalgic for white Christian nationalism, both Hoffer and Hosein add to our understanding of how zombie forms of nineteenth-century thought and representation are both (un)alive and (un)well in the culture industry of twenty-first-century entertainment media
Reimagining the Nineteenth Century through Medieval Fantasy: An Orientalist Portrayal in House of the Dragon
Full text linkThe medieval fantasy series Game of Thrones (2011-19) became a cultural phenomenon after its debut in 2011. Despite widespread backlash from its large fanbase over the final season, HBO launched a spinoff prequel series titled House of the Dragon (2022- ), which delves into a civil war within the infamous ruling family, the Targaryens. Although the world is primarily modeled on a medieval European setting, it incorporates elements from the nineteenth century—especially those tied to the British Empire. Most notably, its orientalist aesthetics closely resemble Victorian-era illustrations from The Arabian Nights. This review explores the visual legacy of The Arabian Nights as a lens for understanding how Victorian-era conceptions of “the East” and empire are integral to the world-building of the Game of Thrones universe, as seen through House of the Dragon